STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- “If you were there, you still deserve care,” is the message of the city Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) on the 12th Anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. At its WTC Center of Excellence, the HHC offers services to adults, children and adolescents who may still be suffering from conditions related to September 11.

One of seven WTC Centers of Excellence in the metropolitan area, the HHC World Trade Center Environmental Health Center is the only one dedicated to treating members of the community rather than first responders. The patients are residents, students, workers, passersby and those who helped in the cleanup.

The center has locations at Bellevue Hospital on the East Side of Manhattan, Elmhurst Hospital in Queens and Gouverneur Health Services in Lower Manhattan.

You may be eligible for treatment if any of these apply:

* You lived, worked, or went to school or day care in the area of Manhattan that is south of Houston Street or in northwest areas of Brooklyn, which are considered the disaster area.

* You were exposed to the dust cloud on 9/11, or to dust or smoke in the disaster area after 9/11.

* You worked as a cleanup worker or performed maintenance work in the disaster area between September 11, 2001 and January 10, 2002.

“There is still a clear and growing need for the high level of care and expertise we provide,” said Dr. Joan Reibman, medical director of the HHC health center.

In addition, the federal government added more than 20 categories of cancer to the list of 9/11-related conditions, expanding the health-care available to many first responders, workers, volunteers, students, visitors, and residents of Lower Manhattan who may be suffering from the disease.

“Our program continues to evolve as with the addition of cancer coverage this past year,” said Terry Miles, Executive Director of the WTC health center.

Funded under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, effective July 1, 2011, treatment at the WTC Health Center is available to patients regardless of their insurance status, immigration status or ability to pay.

The WTC health center is also funded for research projects to investigate causes of continued lower respiratory symptoms in adults, to study potential health effects in adolescents who had childhood WTC exposure, and to continue its collaboration with the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for a respiratory study over time of people in the WTC Registry.